Musings about retirement

I plan to semi-retire at the end of 2013 due to some health issues. There are a couple of points; one that is on my mind from reading AARP is do I have enough money? The answer is I think so, I have a financial advisor working on an analysis and I have done some of this myself in my trading notebook.

To determine if I have enough money to retire, I started a budget looking for the sources of income. We have some fixed annunities, dividend portfolios, interest payments on a house we owner financed and so forth. The budget was a major step in letting me really start to think this was possible and perhaps even wise.

The next question is what do I want to do with the time that I currently spend working. And it is an important question. When I used to work at NSWC I would watch people retire at 55 ( the US Government had a system called CSRS that allowed that). Then it was not uncommon to learn that they died within a year. I guess they just did not have anything to do with their life, so I would like to avoid that. By the way, speaking of CSRS, I will not receive retirement benefits until age 62, it is called deferred retirement, but that is fine.

I would like to keep teaching, I enjoy it and just completed an update of my flagship course MGT 512 SANS Security Leadership Essentials. Kathy and I have talked and we think teaching six to seven weeks a year would be a nice balance. I have another course as well, MGT 514 Security Strategic Planning, Policy and Leadership, so it would be nice to mix and match those a bit.

Kathy currently works as an hourly employee. That sounds pretty attractive, but the other alternative would be teach as a 1099 independent contractor. Need to puzzle this a bit there are positives to both. Not that it is my decision, it is SANS decision, but I should learn to articulate the merits of either choice.

If I become an hourly employee, I could simply do projects for SANS.ORG and SANS.EDU. I have been working on the college rubrics lately and am enjoying the work. After the rubrics are done, it would be great to have a chance to update the college's leadership essay. I think SANS policy project is an important asset to the community and would love a chance to spruce it up. A big advantage of being hourly would be health care.

However, there appear to be advantages to being a 1099. I would need to create a corporation and have SANS pay for teaching through the corporation and the corporation could pay the health care. This way I would get full author fees and at least so far MGT 512 has run a lot, but that is partly due to 8570 which seems to be winding down. Another question would be where to locate the corporation, probably Delaware, they look to be fairly straightforward, not Hawaii, but maybe Washington, our residence. There is some evidence Washington is a good choice for a corporation, but other evidence that it is not.

March rains on Kauai can cause floods

If you are a tourist, you probably do not want to pick March for your vacation to Kauai. Seven years ago, it rained for 30 days straight and the Ka Loko dam burst killing seven people. Last year there was massive flooding, we were overseas and due to come to Kauai, but we diverted, they didn't need two more people using resources.

We just went through a fairly serious rain and they closed the bridge to Hanalei and redirected traffic, but we stayed inside and watched a movie.

Vacation on Kauai March 2013

Received a note from a reader of my SANS.EDU blog and they asked for an update on Kathy and my "Things to do on Kauai" file. Last night, was a bit slow, so I worked on that file. This morning I woke up with the sun and was really hungry.

Flax and Cornbread Morning Flat Cake

1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup corn meal
1 egg
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt
Chicken broth as needed

Mix oil with the corn and flax meal. Add egg, yogurt and chicken broth. Pour into a non-stick skillet and gently brown the bottom. Add some sprinkle cheese to the top and broil to a light brown color.

Orlando to Kauai

Since we moved back to the mainland, we haven't gotten to spend much time in the Hawaiian Islands. This time we have an unprecedented 45 days on the island. We left the sliding door open from our bedroom to listen to the ocean. When we landed it was flat, no white caps, but we sat our on the Makai lanai and saw the swells coming in from the distance. We did see a whale as we were landing, when the ocean is completely flat they are very easy to spot. This is only the second time I have seen a whale from the plane while landing. It will be interesting to see what things look like after the sun comes up.

It was a journey to be here. Our car was at 0430 to the Orlando airport. We were on United 1216 which was on time.

A wheel fell off my carry on bag right as I boarded United 785 from Chicago to Los Angeles which departed at 1000. We had an hour between flights in Los Angeles, so we thought we could purchase another. This was the top of the line Samsonite and it supposedly has a lifetime warranty, but a fat lot of good that does when you are on travel and your bag is broken.  Anyway, no joy on a new bag when we got to Los Angeles, the gate was not ready so we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes. When we got to the gate there was nobody around to drive the jet bridge. We ended up racing through the airport to get to our gate. The flight to Lihue was also United 785 ( hate it when they do that) and I did not have a seat assignment, but every thing worked out OK.

Saw Jeff Frisk on the plane, I guess he also got up very early from Orlando as well. The sun is just coming up, it is a chilly day, high 50s I would guess. I made Kathy some gluten free pancake/blintz cakes for breakfast. Someone was kind enough to put a carton of eggs in our fridge , so used two eggs, some cheese, some greek yogurt and a handful of craisins. They came out great, some of these gluten free mixes are incredibly easy to work with.

Marriott World Center and Orlando

We have spent the week at the world center putting on a conference. I am pleased to report that my newest class, Management 514, Security Planning, Policy and Leadership did well. During our time here we have eaten at three of the on-property restaurants.

Mikado. Just like any other Japanese Teppenyaki grill. It is amazing how similar they all are to each other. Huge portions, I had the Scallops and NY Strip Steak, Kathy had the Shrimp and Filet Mignon. We did not try any adult beverages, since we had to go back to work, but noticed a full bar and wine list.

Hawks Landing Steakhouse. Service was great, but food was so so. I had the pork chop, which they cooked into cardboard. We shared two sides, their awesome hashbrowns and also the mushrooms. Wine list was not that impressive, we shared a bottle of Murphy Goode Cabernet.

Siso, the replacement Italian restaurant. Kathy had the Kale Caesar and I had the Grouper, which was very nice. This was our best experience and we are going back tonight.

Friday night after work we took a cab to Universal and ate at Emeril's. I had the Redfish and Kathy had the Pork Chop. We also had a bottle of Gilgal Cabernet Sauvignon and shared their newest desert, the Trifle to cap the night. It was a wonderful experience. Great service, great taste.

We woke up early Saturday morning. For some reason, we are still here, so we decided to go to the TBN Holy Land Experience. I am glad we started early, because this quickly got very crowded and the aisles are narrow and in all my days on this earth I have never seen so many people that just stop in a passageway and block everyone else. By eleven AM I was starting to lose it and Kathy and I decided to bail out. The Holy Land Experience may be fun when it is not crowded, but I have to put it on my not recommended list.   The Holy Land Cafe, did not look appealing and was already crowded with limited available seating. Hey, I thought, why don't we go back to Emeril's for lunch. I had a phone number for Orlando Checker Cab in my contacts list, they had a cab there in ten minutes. Emeril's was not crowded, was quiet, we got a seat at the kitchen bar so we could watch our food being prepared. Kathy got the Wedge Salad, I had the Truffle Flat bread, all is right with the world!

Richmond to Orlando

James limo was on time for an 8:30 AM pickup, traffic was light and we made it to the airport easily. When we walked up to the Airtran counter, there was no line. Kathy's check bag was a bit heavy ( she is used to flying United where as a 1K she can go all the way to 70 pounds). But all I had in my personal effect was a box of cereal and a book, so we packed my second carry on full and got exactly to 50 pounds.

The plane was on time and it was a quick two hours from Richmond to Orlando. On the way out of the airport, I stopped at the McDonalds and pick up a cheeseburger, this will be the last cheap eats for a while, the resort charges, well resort prices. The Marriott World Center was kind enough to send a bellman to come get us at the airport. We have a nice room and I am excited about starting the conference off well.

This place is huge, I have never seen anything like it outside of Vegas. And there are so many SANS classes, the depth and breadth is incredible.

Last day in Richmond VA (and Cinnebistro)

Last night we went to Cinnebistro for a date and watched Safe Haven. This is a high end dinner/movie establishment. I tried their Drumstick in, Buttermilk Fried Chicken Breast, it was cooked to perfection, but the flavor was so so. Kathy had their Collard Greens which she loves. We shared a bottle of Paso a Paso, which was also so so. It is a bit on the spendy side, movie tickets were 26.00 and the food and wine came to 59.76, so 85.76.

We started packing up for our trip to Orlando. I have my carryon in pretty good shape, just need to locate my knife, I hate it when I donate my knife to TSA. Well, we just found it, the dryer was making this horrid banging sound so I will get it under control in my checked bag.

Snow in Richmond VA

According to weather sources, there is no precipitation to the South of us, rain to the North and we have 3.1 inches of snow and it is still falling. Winter Storm Saturn has also been active with thunder, lightning, and high winds.  It turned from rain to sleet at 4AM, Kathy heard the difference and parked the Mustang in the garage.

I turned on all the electric floors in case we lost power and made up some high protein cornbread so we would have food if we lost power.